5 Then the angel who was speaking with me went out and said to me, "Lift up now your eyes and see what this is going forth ." 6 I said , "What is it?" And he said , "This is the ephah going forth ." Again he said , "This is their appearance in all the land 7 (and behold , a lead cover was lifted up); and this is a woman sitting inside the ephah ." 8 Then he said , "This is Wickedness !" And he threw her down into the middle of the ephah and cast the lead weight on its opening . 9 Then I lifted up my eyes and looked , and there two women were coming out with the wind in their wings ; and they had wings like the wings of a stork , and they lifted up the ephah between the earth and the heavens . 10 I said to the angel who was speaking with me, "Where are they taking the ephah ?" 11 Then he said to me, "To build a temple for her in the land of Shinar ; and when it is prepared , she will be set there on her own pedestal ."
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Zechariah 5:5-11
Commentary on Zechariah 5:5-11
(Read Zechariah 5:5-11)
In this vision the prophet sees an ephah, something in the shape of a corn measure. This betokened the Jewish nation. They are filling the measure of their iniquity; and when it is full, they shall be delivered into the hands of those to whom God sold them for their sins. The woman sitting in the midst of the ephah represents the sinful church and nation of the Jews, in their latter and corrupt age. Guilt is upon the sinner as a weight of lead, to sink him to the lowest hell. This seems to mean the condemnation of the Jews, after they filled the measure of their iniquities by crucifying Christ and rejecting his gospel. Zechariah sees the ephah, with the woman thus pressed in it, carried away to some far country. This intimates that the Jews should be hurried out of their own land, and forced to dwell in far countries, as they had been in Babylon. There the ephah shall be firmly placed, and their sufferings shall continue far longer than in their late captivity. Blindness is happened unto Israel, and they are settled upon their own unbelief. Let sinners fear to treasure up wrath against the day of wrath; for the more they multiply crimes, the faster the measure fills.